From the Law Library: Medical and Health Information Sites

Are you in need of medical information to support a malpractice claim? Do you want to investigate the side effects of the drug that the doctor just prescribed for you? Direct your browser to the following online resources to help you find answers.

Hosted by the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine PubMed contains over 22 million citations to medical literature. Links to the full text of articles are included. PubMed directs users to many other National Library of Medicine databases that also provide access to the literature of scientific and medical research.

MedlinePlus “brings you information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand.” The site organizes this information under 900+ topics, provides access to a medical encyclopedia, a medical dictionary, videos, interactive tutorials, and lists information about prescription drugs and over the counter medications in an alphabetical arrangement. This is another National Library of Medicine website.

The Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic make available a plethora of medical and health information. The Mayo site offers a Symptom Checker that first defines the symptom and then discusses their causes. Visitors are able to “join the conversation” by blogging with Mayo Clinic experts. The Cleveland Clinic offers guests the opportunity to sign-up for email newsletters “all designed to keep you informed on the latest news in healthcare.”

A team that includes board certified physicians, nurses, medical illustrators and journalists combines their expertise to produce the award winning WebMD. From the home page Information under tabs labeled Health A-Z, Drugs & Supplements, Living Healthy, Family & Pregnancy, and News & Experts is browse-able. WebMD users can also search the site’s content via the text search box available on every page.If you have any suggestions or requests for the topic of our next article, email us at reference@law.capital.edu.